THOMASSON: Obama's top need: Ramp down rhetoric and find compromise

President Barack Obama has finally begun to reach out to select Republicans to try to break the impasse in Congress.

It’s about time. At stake is a whole raft of initiatives on which he has counted to boost his legacy.

His performance since Inauguration Day barely has rated a C grade. His disdain for serious negotiation has been almost monumental, and his continuing use of campaign-like attack rhetoric has managed only to lower his job approval rating.

The lack of public enthusiasm for the president’s soothsaying in the Ides of March doesn’t mean the Republicans are off the hook. It’s just that the president’s bully pulpit has become a little rickety as Americans see a government increasingly dysfunctional.

Obama is smart enough to realize that intransigence is a two-way street and that he as the chosen “leader” is an easy target for criticism unless he takes a positive step to reach out to his opponents. If they fail to respond, the blame then shifts to them. He wants detente on the fiscal issue that will allow him to move forward on such initiatives as gun control, immigration and climate change.

According to news reports, he has contacted those among conservative Republicans who are willing to talk about a solution — a sort of common-sense-caucus that includes among others Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio and Bob Corker of Tennessee.

It is anyone’s guess whether these overtures will survive the kind of criticism from the Tea-Party right and the anti-tax lobby that scuttled past talks.

There is little doubt the president believes that the best way ultimately to accomplish his goals is to turn the House back to his own party. Recouping the majority for Democrats in next year’s election is really his end strategy, it seems.

He made that clear — and earned loud criticism from even the press that supports him — for using his old campaign apparatus to establish a new mega fund whose activities ostensibly will be to push for essential changes in climate control etc., but is transparently focused on influencing the 2014 midterm elections.